Of love and masks
by FRC Coazze
Summary: After the umpteenth rejection, Brigitta realizes that she needs a break and to explore new horizons. And if there is a new love on the horizon? But is this love really new?


_Scrooge McDuck and the other characters in this story, except for my original character, are (c) by Disney._

_The characters were humanized for convenience, because I felt like an idiot writing about ducks, you will excuse me :D. The story was inspired by the Italian story "Brigitta e la crociera indimenticabile" (Brigitta and unforgettable cruise) by Antonella Pandini (text) and Lara Molinari (drawings)._

_Enjoy!_

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**Prologue  
**

She dragged herself along the path. Dragged, yes, that's the right word, because on the figure of that devastated woman no one would find any sign of the strength and vitality which had always defined her personality. Always fighting for a love in which she had never stopped believing. Ever. Always on her feet again, no matter how hard the shot that forced her on her knees had been. Brigitta MacBridge had always been that kind of woman, a woman who never gives up, who does not know surrender, not even as a lemma. You do not know the meaning of that word? Search of another dictionary, because you won't find it here... or at least, no more. But looking at her now, walking slowly toward the door, holding a bouquet of flowers that almost brushed against the ground, you may doubt that in those pages the fading ghost of that words was indeed showing out.

Away, up on Killmotor Hill, Scrooge McDuck's bin showed itself imperious, and it seemed to crush the little woman and her house. A cold block of steel that the flowers had not been able to melt. But then, when ever could they? You can keep throwing roses against a piece of iron, but the iron remains iron. You could have thousands, millions of roses, but they will not be able to heat the steel. Brigitta had understood that. Her bouquet of roses had been of little worth, she did not even know why she had brought it along. What did she expect? That Scrooge would have accepted her invitation because she had brought him flowers? Oh, come on!

Brigitta did not know tears. Not if they were needed to water roses that she could pull out of the hat hundreds and hundreds times again, the result of her deep strength and stubbornness. And yet now, the ones she hold in her hand seemed to be her last roses. Her last roses to be rejected.

She opened the blue door of her house with a weary gesture. She slipped inside, and the Bin vanished from her sight, but not from her thoughts. And she vanished from the Bin's sight in whose thoughts she had never entered.

She did not have the strength to take another step, after closing the door. She felt her legs give up and her back rest against the wood of the door like an old man to his staff. The flowers still hold tight in her hand, the pink paper that wrapped them stuck to her sweaty fingers. She was shaking and did not know why, as if her body was trying to escape the control of her own mind, wriggling like a chained dog. She felt the moisture growing in her eyes and kept repeating to herself that she would not cry... that she should not cry, because crying is useless if not to water already dead roses.

Her chest was hurting, firm against tremor.

Her eyes were burning.

Her hand was sweating.

Brigitta swallowed. She took a deep breath, slowly recovering her self-control. The tremor did not abandon her, but she managed to find the strength to leave the door and straighten proudly her shoulders.

Another deep breath, recalling the tears down into her eyes, then she took a step forward, and another, and another. Slowly, she went to the living room to the right of the entrance, her heels clapping against the tiles as if marking the beats of her saddened heart. She brushed against the wall, almost like a caress, and entered the room.

There was a picture on the coffee table next to the couch.

Brigitta reached it slowly. That picture would be deleted. That face should be forgot. Enough. If the steel did not capitulate, then she wouldn't. If steel rejected the roses, the roses would find something else... something or someone who would smile and accept them. There had to be that someone, somewhere. And even if there was not... the sea, the sea would erase the pain and would have taken it away in a glimpse of tide.

Her hand rose and grabbed the photo turning it over. It was for her time to change perspective... to change horizon. A new sun would rise over the sea and she would be there waiting for him.


End file.
